- MARAISBURG, South Africa
(Reuters) - Its space-age domes gleaming under the hot sun, Sparrow Rainbow
village might seem an optimistic vision of Africa's 21st century future.
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- Laughing children play on grassy lawns, adults gather
to chat in the village square and bright laundry hangs in the breeze. But
everyone at Sparrow village has AIDS. And most will die from it.
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- South Africa's first "AIDS village", an ultra-modern
community set up on the outskirts of Johannesburg, is one face of an epidemic
raging across the continent.
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- But its architecture can do little to mask the death
and economic devastation that AIDS is wreaking on some of the world's poorest
countries -- a disaster compounded by drought, hunger and poverty.
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- Death visits Sparrow village about four times a week.
Many adults residents are often too sick to get out of bed. Most of its
children are orphans.
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- "Sometimes its like a cloud hangs over us, but we
try to keep going," said Lynette Nel, co-director of the village which
was set up earlier this year by an interdenominational Christian charity
organisation.
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- As Africa prepares to mark World AIDS Day on Sunday,
the numbers tell a harrowing tale of a continent's woe.
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- Of the estimated 42 million people worldwide infected
with HIV, almost 30 million live in sub-Saharan Africa, most far from the
reach of medical treatments which might prolong their lives.
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- In southern Africa, the area hardest hit by the disease,
Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland and Zimbabwe now have adult infection rates
higher than 30 percent, according to figures released this week by the
United Nations.
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- South Africa alone has close to 5 million people infected
with the disease. State-funded medical researchers estimate that up to
seven million people will die of AIDS-related causes by 2010 if the government
does not act.
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- UNPRECEDENTED DISASTER
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- Across the region, countries are struggling with a pandemic
costing billions of dollars as farmers, teachers, miners and shopkeepers
fall sick and die.
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- "There has never been such a devastating assault
on a continent," said Stephen Lewis, the U.N.'s special envoy for
HIV/AIDS in Africa. "There are no precedents for what is happening
in Africa today."
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- Families are being left destitute, companies scrambling
to replace workers and agricultural output is dropping -- exacerbating
food shortages that have already put more than 14 million people on the
brink of starvation.
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- U.N. officials the AIDS epidemic is a major cause of
Africa's current food crisis. It is a sign, they say, of how basic building
blocks of society can crumble in the face of the disease.
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- Sparrow village is one response to a health emergency
threatening to overwhelm the region's fragile medical infrastructure. Here,
thanks to donations, a handful of AIDS patients can live out their days
free from the stigmatisation and prejudice often attached to the disease.
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- Most other AIDS victims are not so lucky. In some areas,
hospitals are running out of beds as widespread HIV infection finally tips
into full-blown AIDS. Meanwhile, many mortuaries are full and funeral parlours
are doing a roaring business.
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- At the Soweto Hospice outside Johannesburg, nurses try
to organise home care for hundreds of AIDS sufferers. Dozens more sick
people arrive each day looking for help.
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- But the hospice, the only organization of its kind in
a sprawling township community of some 3 million people, has only nine
beds. They are always full -- but occupants change daily.
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- "We get deaths every day," said Zodwa Sithole,
a project coordinator at the hospice.
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- GLIMMERS OF HOPE
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- South Africa, widely criticised after President Thabo
Mbeki questioned the link between HIV and AIDS, continues to resist approving
the widespread use of anti-retroviral drugs, the only medication known
to slow the progress of the disease.
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- But while officials say the drugs have been too expensive,
and perhaps too toxic, for widespread use, there are signs of a more activist
approach toward fighting the AIDS crisis.
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- "South Africa is prepared to do anything that is
necessary," Deputy President Jacob Zuma told Reuters television in
a recent interview. "It is an enormous battle, but we will get a handle
on it."
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- Officials and AIDS workers point to other signs of hope,
from Uganda's successful drive to reduce new HIV infections to rising condom
use in a number of countries. But with southern Africa's food crisis only
just beginning and AIDS donations from developed nations lagging far below
United Nations targets, most agree that Africa's AIDS apocalypse has only
just begun.
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- "A lot of this is unimaginable. But we are going
to have to start imagining it. It is happening," Lewis said.
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- At Sparrow village, residents count their few blessings.
The community, which now houses some 85 people, is being rapidly expanded
with dozens of new "dome homes" going up to cope with a tidal
wave of new terminal AIDS cases.
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- For Mbali Sibiya, a 30-year-old mother who came to the
village with her 3-year-old daughter Nquobile, the village provides a last
refuge of hope and friendship even as the AIDS virus surges through her
blood.
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- "In the end, we're all six feet under, you and me,"
Sibiya said. "But we are fighting this fight to the end."
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